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US, Iraq hold crisis talks in Baghdad

ELEANOR HALL: The US secretary of state has promised to provide "intense and sustained" support for Iraq's government, but he also re-stated that the divided country will only survive if its leaders take urgent steps to bring it together.

John Kerry made the comments after holding crisis talks in Baghdad with the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, as insurgents seized even more territory in the country's north and west.

David Newton was the US ambassador to Iraq under Ronald Reagan.

He's now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, and he spoke to our North America correspondent Jane Cowan:

JANE COWAN: What do you make of the message that the secretary of state was delivering in Baghdad? He seems on the one hand to be obviously withholding the air strikes that the Iraqis have asked for and instead urging the formation of a more inclusive government.

But, on the other, he is indicating that the US won't necessarily wait for political reform if air strikes are deemed necessary.

DAVID NEWTON: Yes, again, I think we're worried that events might suddenly go much worse, but air strikes are not as easy as people might think.

It'll be difficult to identify these people. It won't be all that easy to make a difference - even with air power.

And I think we still want to see very clearly what's happening before we commit ourselves to this, because once we do, it's not easy to go back.

JANE COWAN: Is there any real prospect that these sectarian divides can be bridged in time for the formation of any kind of new government on this July the 1st deadline, which is what John Kerry even today is still saying Maliki has agreed to?

DAVID NEWTON: I don't think you can see a change on the part of the Sunni Arabs, many of whom have taken up arms with ISIS for their own reasons. They're already very disaffected.

He's certainly not going to be that quickly, within a week approximately, be able to convince them that the situation has changed.

JANE COWAN: When you have western military experts making the assessment that about a quarter of Iraq's military force is combat ineffective, as they say, is there any way that the militants are stopped without US military intervention?

DAVID NEWTON: Well, their numbers are not so large and, of course, that means that three quarters of the force is combat effective, although I'm not sure how effective.

They are reasonably well equipped; the more elite forces should be able to do a respectable job, but to expect them to retake northern Iraq I think is a major task.

JANE COWAN: The Obama administration clearly doesn't want to be seen to take sides here. What do you predict will happen if the Iraqi leaders, say, make a decent show of forming a better, more inclusive government? Do you then think the US will be more comfortable intervening militarily?

DAVID NEWTON: I think we would like to avoid intervening military if at all possible, but we have to be ready to do it. I suspect that it'll be more of a muddle than anything else for a while.

JANE COWAN: I can almost hear the resignation in your voice. Is there any way that this ends without Iraq in pieces, do you think?

DAVID NEWTON: I think there is a prospect. I think it's going to be still. There'll be much less control I think, in the end, over the Sunni areas. You know, I know some people think Iraq is an artificial creation; I think they're confusing country and nation with state.

Like other parts of the Ottoman Empire, it's only been a state since the 1920s, but this is a historical country going back millennia and there is still a degree, a weakened degree but still a noticeable degree, of Iraqi's feeling that they're a nation.

Now the Kurds, the Kurds don't want any part of the Iraqi state except to enjoy the advantages of it and that won't change. But I think there's still a lot of Iraqis in the end would be reluctant to see the country split up.